An outline, era by era

Olmec (Mesoamerica, from ~1600 BCE)

Bronze Age · ~3300 – ~1200 BCE

The Olmec were the first major civilization of Mesoamerica. They lived on the humid Gulf Coast lowlands of southern Veracruz and neighbouring Tabasco, in present-day Mexico. Their earliest large centre, San Lorenzo, flourished from around 1400 to 900 BCE, and was followed by La Venta, which rose to prominence afterwards. Farming villages in the region go back to around 1600 BCE or earlier, and the Olmec culture is usually traced from that time.

The Olmec are best known for colossal basalt heads, carved thrones, jade objects and large earthen platforms and mounds. Their art style and religious symbols, such as the were-jaguar, spread widely across Mesoamerica. Many later cultures, including the Maya, shared features that may have begun with the Olmec, such as ritual ball games, bloodletting and a calendar. We do not know what the Olmec called themselves; 'Olmec' is an Aztec word for the later people of the same region. Because they left almost no readable texts, our knowledge comes from archaeology.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Olmec as the mother culture

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The Olmec are the 'mother culture' of Mesoamerica. From their homeland they give the rest of the region its gods, its calendar, its writing and its ball game, and every later civilization is their child.

    The rest is history

    The idea was advanced in the 1940s by the archaeologist Alfonso Caso and others, and was hotly debated. Many scholars now see Mesoamerican culture as developing through contact between many regions at once, including Oaxaca, the Pacific coast and the Maya lowlands. Olmec art and symbols clearly travelled widely, and some Olmec centres were very early and large. But some of the supposed Olmec inventions, such as early village life and ceremonial architecture, appear elsewhere at about the same time or earlier. The better view is of a 'sister culture' among several peoples who traded and shared ideas, with the Olmec among the most influential.

    Sources

    1. BookDiehl, Richard A. The Olmecs: America's First Civilization. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.Overview of Olmec archaeology, including the mother culture debate.
    2. BookClark, John E., and Mary E. Pye, eds. Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2000.
    3. BookFlannery, Kent V., and Joyce Marcus, eds. The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations. New York: Academic Press, 1983.Includes the argument for a 'sister culture' view.

  2. The giant heads as portraits of African visitors

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The colossal stone heads of the Olmec have broad noses and full lips. Some writers claim they show Africans who crossed the Atlantic and brought civilization to ancient Mexico.

    The rest is history

    The claim was made popular by Ivan Van Sertima in his 1976 book They Came Before Columbus. It has been rejected by archaeologists. The heads were carved from basalt from the Tuxtla Mountains and are in the style of Olmec art, with matching features on figurines and other carvings found in Olmec sites. They are now widely understood as portraits of Olmec rulers, each wearing a distinct helmet. No African objects, crops, writing or burials have ever been found at Olmec sites, and radiocarbon dating traces the culture's development in Mexico itself. Seventeen of these heads are known, and the first was reported in 1862 at Tres Zapotes.

    Sources

    1. BookVan Sertima, Ivan. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America. New York: Random House, 1976.The source of the claim.
    2. BookDiehl, Richard A. The Olmecs: America's First Civilization. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.Discusses the heads as portraits of rulers.
    3. BookCoe, Michael D., and Rex Koontz. Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs. 7th ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013.

  3. The jaguar and the human mother

    Myth

    The legend

    A jaguar mates with a woman, and their offspring are half human and half cat, with snarling mouths and cleft heads. These were-jaguar children are said to be the ancestors of the Olmec and the source of their rulers' power.

    The rest is history

    No Olmec text tells this story. It was put forward by Matthew Stirling and later by Michael Coe in the 1960s to explain the many carvings of infants with downturned mouths and the stone altar scenes at La Venta and Potrero Nuevo that show a figure with a limp baby. Some scholars suspect it does record a myth of descent. Others now think the images blend features from several creatures, including caimans, eagles and snakes, rather than one jaguar, and that the 'baby' figures show other religious ideas. The explanation is therefore an interpretation of the art, not a recorded legend, and is debated. The stone monument at Potrero Nuevo was found in the 1960s.

    Sources

    1. BookCoe, Michael D. America's First Civilization: Discovering the Olmec. New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1968.
    2. BookTaube, Karl A. Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2004.Argues the Olmec images draw on many beings and not only the jaguar.
    3. BookDiehl, Richard A. The Olmecs: America's First Civilization. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.

  4. The Cascajal Block and the first writing in the Americas

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A stone slab found in Veracruz bears a line of signs that show the Olmec wrote the earliest script in the Americas, about 900 BCE, and that this unreadable writing can be read once it is decoded.

    The rest is history

    The Cascajal Block is a serpentine slab found by road builders in the 1990s and reported in Science in 2006. It carries 62 signs, some repeated, and dates to about 900 BCE or a little earlier. If it is genuine writing, it is the oldest in the Americas. The find came from looters and has no clear archaeological setting, and some scholars have questioned how it should be read or even whether it is a true script. It has not been deciphered, and the language is unknown. Later writing at sites such as Epi-Olmec La Mojarra, from around 150 CE, is a different matter.

    Sources

    1. ArticleRodríguez Martínez, María del Carmen, et al. "Oldest Writing in the New World." Science 313, no. 5793 (2006): 1610-1614.First report of the Cascajal Block.
    2. BookCoe, Michael D., and Rex Koontz. Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs. 7th ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013.

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